Hearthunters (A Headhunters Rewrite)
by Alwaysgurl2013
Summary: What if Castle and Beckett had already been together when he decides to shadow Detective Slaughter. A Headhunters Rewrite.


**Author Note: So back when Headhunters came out I started to write an episode retelling but with a twist of what if Kate and Rick had already been together. That was this piece. Today I finished it. Enjoy something that was six years in the making. All it took was finding my external hard drive from high school and a empty Saturday afternoon to write the additional 9 pages it needed.**

At first it had seemed like nothing, Kate had assumed that Rick was just giving her some time to think. They had been fighting on and off for a couple weeks. The stress from her court case, the pressure from his publisher, his writer block, everything was piling up and the stress of having a newer relationship was pushing them both. They had been in the honeymoon phase for a while, but the past couple of weeks were hurting them both. The fighting left them both angry and upset since they didn't like hurting each other with their words. Then she found out he had jetted off to Las Vegas for the weekend from Twitter updates that weren't even his. Kate had been dying to call him, she wanted to hear his voice and know that everything was going to be ok. So when she saw him sitting on the corner of her desk, her smile radiated from inside to out.

"Hey."

"Hey." He held a coffee out to her while she talks about her court case before he spells out a story to her of wanting to shadow Detective Slaughter for a few days. His excuse was his writer block, but she was wondering if their honeymoon period had ended to tell her that their relationship and partnership wasn't going to work any longer. She watched him walk towards the elevator and feels her heart drop to her stomach as she watches the man she loves leave towards a place where she will not be able to save him.

"Hey. What's this I hear about Castle researching with another cop?" Ryan says causing Kate to roll her eyes before walking towards her desk.

"Don't you have some fives to fill out?"

"I'm sure it's just a phase. You know Castle. He's probably caught up in the severed heads and the rush of the gangster squad-"

"I don't care…" Kate tries to make it sound true, but she's hurting so she puts more force into her non-functioning stapler. "… what he's wrapped up in, just so long as he stays out of my…" A new stapler ends up in front of her from Ryan. "Hair. Thanks." Before Ryan can say anything else, Kate and Ryan see Rick and Slaughter walk out of the elevator with suspects in hand. If that wasn't shocking enough to Kate, the Kleenex stuffed up his bloody nostril was. Rick points Slaughter towards their interrogation, the one where he and she usually broke their killers. Kate feels her jaw fall open as she feels a sense of betrayal from her boyfriend, but is also scared that he has been hurt already and he had only been with "The Widowmaker" for a few hours. Rick heaves a showy sigh as Kate turns to look him in the eyes. Kate needs to make sure he's alright, but she doesn't approve of any of his actions at the moment. "What the hell happened?" The anger flies into her voice. She can feel Slaughter's eyes on her ass, but she can't even bring herself to deal with the less than kosher cop when her boyfriend is pissing her off.

"Oh, you should have seen it. Slaughter got the drop on the one guy, but the other guy tried to make a break for it. I had to take his ass down." Rick uses another Kleenex to clean out his nose.

"You what? Are you kidding me? You're a writer, Castle, not a cop."

"Yeah, I can take care of myself, you just never give me a chance." Kate's hand wants to reach up and hold his face so she can at least make sure that he is ok, but with their relationship not known to anyone else here she keeps her hands down.

"Yeah, because I'm not trying to get you killed, and what is he doing using our box?"

"I invited him to."

"Castle, that's not your place." Her arms cross to stop themselves from reaching out to grab the man in front of her and not letting him leave her sight.

"I didn't think you'd mind. Besides, guys like Slaughter, they just float from precinct to precinct, you know? They're like nomads, wandering the streets of New York City, kicking ass and taking names." Rick pauses and his forehead crinkles like it does when he starts thinking too much. It's one of the things that she loves about him. "Which isn't the most original turn of phrase, but the character is so great. It's really gonna help me shake up this next Nikki Heat book." And in a bout of anger she says something she wishes she hadn't.

"Yeah, sure. If you live long enough to actually write about it." And the look on Rick's face as he walks away hurts her more than her words did. That's when she called the one person she thought will be able to talk her through and help her figure out what was going on.

"You're upset."

"No." She finds herself pacing in his office like she had so many times before. She knows how many steps it takes from her chair to the window as well as from the other wall back to her chair, yet she finds herself counting the ten steps quickly in her head before changing her answer to Dr. Burke. "Yes, okay? Fine. Yes. I thought that the two of us were actually getting closer together and now it seems like he's just pulling away. We're finally in this relationship, but now it's almost like he doesn't want it at all."

"Have you asked him why?"

"Yes. And he said, 'Oh, everything is fine.'" Dr. Burke smirks at Kate's impression of her boyfriend which he has seen a couple times since she had started her therapy almost a year ago.

"What makes you think it isn't?"

"Because he's been acting like a complete jackass! We were fighting for weeks on end, then went on to ignoring me like there wasn't anything wrong, then he runs off to Vegas without even mentioning it to me, and now he's running around with another cop!"

"Is this other cop a woman?"

"No!" Like Castle would even risk running around with another female cop. "No. What? Why would you even ask that?" Dr. Burke looks amused but Kate isn't. "That's not even the point." Her finger points out her words to him. "The point is I don't understand why he's acting like this. I mean, what did I do?"

"Well maybe from his point of view, the question is, "What didn't you do?"

"Wait, what? W-what do you mean?"

"Not you specifically but you both as a couple."

"What… What do you mean? Us as a couple?!"

"Think about it, he's had, what two failed marriages? And when you first met he was, as you phrased at the beginning of our sessions, with 'bimbos on both arms.'"

"So, what I'm not the kind of relationship he wants? That I don't jet off to other states for weekends away? I'm not the bimbo he wants in his life?" Kate hasn't allowed her thoughts to even consider that Rick would have looked at anyone while in Vegas two weekends ago, but now she's starting to question how sure she is of that.

"Or he's worried that you have one foot out the door and he's waiting for the other shoe to drop, so he's protecting himself by not taking more emotional risks. Maybe he's holding back until he knows you're in this too so that he doesn't get hurt."

"So then, what do I do?"

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to love him." Her own words make her sit down with the shock of how real it is. She wants to spend the rest of her life with Castle and she knows it. "I don't want anyone else but him. What if I've waited too long to tell him? What if he doesn't want that risk any more?"

"You'll never know unless you talk to him Kate. But from what you've said about him to me, I think he'll want that risk. Talk with him and you'll get your answer."

When Kate gets back to the prescient, all she wants to do was focus on her court case. She doesn't know how to handle the fact that Rick's life might actually be at risk with this case and she and Ryan are sorting through the evidence when Ryan says, "Look at 'em. Laughing it up. Just acting like they own the place. I'm gonna say something."

"No, don't. It's not worth it." She couldn't tell Ryan that she was going to talk to her boyfriend at the day's end, so she was trying to play it off as she didn't mind.

"I feel like he's cheating on us." Was he cheating? Was that why he went to Vegas for the weekend? No, there was no was that he would do that… right? She knows him and knows he's not that kind of man.

"He's not cheating on us, Ryan. He's just...branching out."

"Hmm." Kate tries to not watch Rick, Slaughter, and one of Slaughter's associates making conversation, although Rick looked scared out of his mind when Slaughter walked over to him. Kate tried to put the thoughts out of her mind until Ryan talked to her about running a set of Texas plates.

"Are we helping Castle with this Beckett?"

"Yeah, he thinks he can run around with cops other than us but still get help from us? I don't like it Boss." Espo adds.

"Guys, if we help Castle, we can get him out of running with Slaughter. Sooner or later he'll realize not every cop works the right way and eventually he will come running back to us needing us to save him. But for now let's have his back." Kate knows there isn't much she can do but wait for Rick to realize on his own. Does she want to talk about her therapy realization with him? Yes. Can it wait until Slaughter is out of their life? If he lives that long, yes. She decides her best decision for this moment is to go home, drink some wine, and try to not worry about her boyfriend who had texted her that he was going out for drinks now with his new book character. She turns to her fictional version of them to distract her but she must have fallen asleep because suddenly a loud pounding coming from her front door, jolts her awake.

"KAAAATTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEE." A glance at her watch tells her it's too early for her to be awake, but too late for Castle to be yelling her name in the hallway of her apartment.

"Castle? It's 4am." She runs a hand across her eye, trying to rub the sleep away as she opens the door, but ends up with just a hand covered in her makeup that she fell asleep in.

"Kate." Rick's drunk. There's no doubt about it, but the smile on his lips is the one that appears only when he's had too much alcohol that he will definitely regret in the morning. "I misssssssssssed youuuuuuuuuuu."

"My neighbors are going to hate you." Kate reaches out and grabs his hand pulling him inside of her apartment. Turning to face the other direction so she can close the front door, she drops Rick's hand. But apparently that made her too far from him again and suddenly his giant frame was wrapped around her. "Rick, what are you doing?" His arms rest around her waist and his nose is lingering in her hair, breathing in the smell of her cherry shampoo.

"Missed you." His repeated words are mumbled out.

"Yeah, well you decided to go hang out with Slaughter all day, remember? I was at the precinct for most of the day."

"Not all day." His words catch her off guard. "Came to take you to lunch. No Kate."

"I had an appointment during lunch Castle." She turns in his arms so she can see her drunk boyfriend's face. "Plus, I was expecting you to be out kicking ass and taking names so I didn't think you would care." There were so many other questions she had for Rick, but she didn't want to have this discussion while he was clearly still drunk. That wasn't fair to either of them. "Come on, let's go to bed." She keeps his arm around her to help support him as he walks with her.

"Kate, why don't you trust me." The question comes out of his mouth as a statement while she helps him towards her room.

"Castle, I do trust you. I just don't trust Slaughter." She leads him to sit on the bed, and starts unbuttoning his button down. Rick's hands stop her's from unbuttoning his shirt.

"You didn't tell me you remembered. You remember getting shot." Kate's face pulls together in confusion. How does he know she remembered everything from her shooting? True they had gotten together a few months after it, but it shouldn't matter what she heard that day. They're together now. "Why don't you trust me Kate?"

"Castle, I do trust you. I trust you more than anyone else."

"'But you told a complete stranger that you remembered and not me."

"So you ran off to Vegas to find some bimbo to replace me instead of talking to me?" Castle's face sobers up although she can smell the booze on him.

"Kate, I wouldn't." Kate reaches a hand to caress his face. She knows it too. She never should have let her words get the best of her.

"I know. That wasn't fair of me to say. Look, let's talk later on ok? When you're not drunk and I'm not half asleep." He nods, not trusting his drunken mind to come up with anything at this moment. She helps him out of his button down and jeans, before helping him lay down correctly. When she sees him close his eyes and pull the covers towards him, she slips out of the room into bathroom to remove her makeup and grab him some aspirin for in the morning. Placing a glass of water and the pills next to his side of the bed, she runs a hand softly along his face. They still have a lot to work through, but she knows she loves this man no matter how irritated he can make her at times. "I love you Rick." She trusted herself saying it to him when he was asleep, because she could still take it back.

"Love 'ou too." Rick's voice is no louder than a mumble, but Kate could see a future where they can talk, love, and be together. Climbing in on her side, she's not surprised that Rick rolls over to pull her towards him subconsciously. Drunk Rick is a cuddler, which is not much different than him normally, but that is how they ended in bed together that first time. Both of them drunk off their asses and suddenly they found themselves making up for lost time. Kate's hand runs through Rick's hair as she thinks through everything that had happened over the past five months. God had it really only been five months?

Kate's alarm goes off before either of them are ready for it. "Turn it offffffffffff." Rick whines, but turns into her shoulder trying to hide from the sunlight that makes his head pound even harder.

"There's aspirin on the bedside table babe." Kate says softly as she untangles herself from him, knowing that the alarm isn't going to help his headache, but the aspirin actually might.

"It's got to be too early for you to have to get ready for work." Rick says as he throws an arm over his eyes.

"It would feel that way when you didn't get here until 4 am." Rick sits up suddenly and looks around the room, which is too much for his pounding head. He grabs the aspirin and the water and takes it quickly. "Wait, did all of that actually happen last night?"

"I don't know what you're trying to remember but if you're remembering showing up drunk as a skunk at 4 am and yelling my name until I let you in then yes."

"So then me accusing you of not trusting me actually happened?" Oh how she was hoping he would forget that. "Kate, I swear I wasn't coming over last night to bring that up."

"I know, but you were right, I should have told you before I told a random person in our box. But it had nothing to do with trust. I just figured it was one of those moments of dying declarations that didn't need to be brought back up now that we're together Castle." She sits down next to him and decides she needs to tell him about the therapy realization. "Do you remember asking me about where I was around lunch time?" Rick nods not sure where this is going. "I went to see Dr. Burke, he's my therapist."

"You're seeing a therapist? I didn't know that."

"I know. I didn't want to make excuses Castle. I wanted to work on pulling my wall down brick by brick so I can have- so we can have the relationship we deserve. I needed to talk with him about you running around with Slaughter though. That's why it wasn't a planned appointment."

"Wait me and Slaughter? Why did you need to talk about that?"

"Because I was confused. I felt hurt that you wanted to research with someone else. But more importantly I felt like we," She motions to each of them, "We're pulling away from each other and I couldn't figure out why. I thought I would lose you before I got to tell you that I loved you and I needed to work through my thoughts with someone who could help me figure out why us arguing so much and running from each other scared me so much."

"So that was real too? You really said you loved me last night? I thought I was dreaming."

"I thought you were asleep too, but yes I love you Rick." Rick pulls Kate into his arms. He knows there is so much more still to talk about, but Kate loves him. His lips find hers to show her his feelings. _I love you Rick. I love you Rick. I love you Rick. _The words play over and over in his head. Kate Beckett loves him. He feels like he's died and gone to heaven. Oh god, dying- he has to go back to Slaughter again.

"Kate, if you love me, you'll have a case for me today."

"What no kicking ass and taking names today?" Kate jokes, but she can sense the worry in his eyes. "Castle I'm still on trial prep so I have nothing to steal you for. Plus don't you want to see how the story ends?"

"But you said it the best, what if I'm not alive to see how the story ends? That makes hearing you love me such a rip off if I don't get to show you how much I love you at the end of the day."

"Castle, it's not like you to worry like this. If it seriously becomes an issue, I'll save your ass ok? I happen to like it all in one piece so I'll make sure it stays that way."

"I punched Slaughter yesterday." The sentence catches her off guard.

"Was this while you were drunk?" Rick shakes his head.

"He made jokes about how he'd go all caveman on you to show you what time it was in real man land and how there's this hot new redhead, just started working down in the morgue. 'Barely street legal' were his exact words about her I believe."

"Oh no."

"Yeah. So I clarified who he was talking about and when he asks if I know her, I said 'yeah that's my daughter'. You would think he would realize that talking about the two main women in my life was going to push me off the deep end, but he goes on to try and start some offensive sentence about my little girl and so I punched him." Rick shrugs. "Make it clear that both of you are off limits."

"I take it he didn't know how strong you actually are." Kate says running a hand down Rick's bicep, visible for now being in only his undershirt and boxers.

"Yeah, said I packed a little punch for a writer."

"Well your strength is one of the many qualities I love."

"Oooooo, can I get a list of them?" Kate rolls her eyes but barely looks back as she gets up from the bed to start to get ready.

"No, but I could make a list of places your new inspiration hasn't run his imagination over yet, might be shorter." Rick's jealousy flares up and he comes over to where Kate is pulling clothing from her armoir and moves her hair out of his way so he can place some kisses on her collarbone.

"I'll punch him again for looking at my girl the wrong way." Rick murmurs between kisses as he pulls her back into his arms.

"Your girl?" Kate says, not being able to get more words out with how Rick's mouth was working her shoulder and neck.

"My girl." Rick's voice now has a smile in it and she reaches for a turtleneck, knowing her boyfriend had left marks all over her. "The point of those is for others to see them, know you're mine."

"And deal with Ryan and Espo teasing me about the new man in my life all day? I'd rather hear them whine about how you're cheating on us." Kate turns in his arms and places a quick kiss on his lips. "I know you're mine and that's the more important thing."

"You know I didn't go to Vegas to cheat on you right?" Kate freezes, not expecting those words to come out of his mouth, but then she recalls what she said to him last night.

"Castle, I shouldn't have said that. I know you're not a cheater. I was pissed you know me as well as you do and I said that out of anger. I was more scared I was losing you."

"Not losing me." Rick places another kiss on her lips, this one longer and more reassuring. "And I wasn't in Vegas for any woman. The only one I wanted was the maddening one at home." Kate smiles at him, but waits for him to continue, knowing he wouldn't leave her without the rest of the story. "I left because it was right after I found out that you remembered. Yes I should have stayed and talked it out with you. But I wasn't being smart and I decided I needed to get away from everything that made me think of you. So I ran away to a city with brighter lights, that also never sleeps. But all I did was gamble some, lose more than I earned, and then flew back here so I could be here for your Monday shift."

"I was scared you weren't going to show up for that case." Rick looks at her with his ever curious eyes. "I saw on Twitter that you were in Vegas. You liked someone's tweet about how nice it was to meet you in Vegas, and I had thought the whole time you were at home writing. I thought maybe you decided we weren't enough. Dr. Burke suggested that you were worried that I have one foot out the door and you were waiting for the other shoe to drop so you were protecting yourself by not taking more emotional risks."

"Kate you will always be worth the emotional risk."

"So are you Rick. I don't want to have one foot out the door anymore. I may need your help kicking down the last couple bricks in the wall, but I want to jump in head first. You're the only person I want to spend the rest of my life with." Rick stares at her, not saying anything. "Or maybe it's too soon for that so I take it back?"

"No! Don't take it back! I want to spend the rest of my life with you too Kate. I just didn't know you would be the first of us to admit it. And I'll help you take down every brick that's left, but can we wait on knocking them down until this hangover goes away?" Kate smiles at her boyfriend's antics.

"Of course we can wait until the pounding from you drinking like a fish last night goes away." Kate kisses his forehead in a kiss-it-make-it-better move. "I do have to finish getting ready for work though. What time do you have to meet Slaughter?" Rick grimaces as he reaches for his phone.

"An hour. How is he not feeling as awful as I do?"

"I don't know babe, but if you're planning on going home before meeting him, you probably need to get ready too." Rick doesn't respond but lays back down on her bed with a groan. "You have some clothing here if you don't want to run home, but you should probably start getting ready too. I'm going to hop in the shower." Rick's head pops up and he looks at her with a raised eyebrow. "I'll let you figure out, what you're wearing and if I'm still in the shower-"

"Screw whatever I'm wearing, let's help the planet and conserve some water." Rick winks at her as he follows his girlfriend into the bathroom.

Kate drops Castle at the ground floor door of the precinct since that's where Slaughter is supposed to meet him. Heading up towards the precinct, Kate tries not to worry too much. Castle survived longer than some of Slaughter's actual partners had. He could protect himself, right? When she doesn't find Espo and Ryan waiting for her, she has a feeling her answer should actually be no.

"GONE TO SAVE CASTLE'S ASS" A note left on her desk reads from Espo and she knows she won't be able to get any actual work done on the case until she knows Castle is ok.

"Who knew all these years we've been working together you had a death wish." Ryan's filling out paperwork as he gets on Castle for making them save him.

"What, that? That wasn't bad. Slaughter had a plan." Castle's voice sounds confident in his answer, but his shaking hands as he goes to sip his coffee contradicts his words.

"Yeah, he had a plan to get you killed." Ryan says glancing at Castle's hands, knowing Castle doesn't believe his words either. Castle's phone goes off, interrupting them before they can continue. Castle already has an idea of who it probably is, but looks anyway.

"It's Slaughter." He pauses, hoping Ryan might try to stop him. "I gotta go."

"Alright. Next time we might not be there to save you." Ryan's tone let's Castle know he has an out, he just has to take it. Castle pauses for a second before walking down the hallway. He knows Ryan is right and that things with Slaughter could very easily go badly, but he just doesn't know how to stop. From the conference room, Kate and Espo can hear the whole conversation and Espo knows Beckett is the only person who could stop Castle.

"You gotta do something." Kate looks up sadly, knowing that Castle could be headed towards his own execution, but he would have come to her if he wanted to stop.

"Espo, if the guy's hell bent on leaving the nest then there's nothing that I can do about it."

"You don't really feel that way, do you?" She loves him. But she can't just blurt that out in the middle of the conference room. Her gaze shifts to Castle and she wishes she could convince him to stop this madness. But it isn't until Ryan and Espo get called out to a murder that Castle comes crawling to her.

"Hey. How's it going?"

"You can skip the small talk, Castle. What do you want?" She doesn't even look up from the case files, knowing that if she did it would give away that she's ready to save him, all he has to do is ask.

"Slaughter went to far."

"Well isn't that what he does? Along with kicking ass and taking names?" She adds in the phrase so he knows she's not entirely angry with him, just displeased that her boyfriend is in danger.

"He pressured a kid into making a false statement so he could arrest Vales."

"So you came to me so I can fix it?"

"You have every right to be mad. You warned me about Slaughter from the start and I didn't listen. But I'm just trying to make this right. And you did say you would save my ass since you like it so much?" He tries to get her to at least see he's trying.

"It's not my case though Castle." She walks towards her desk where the evidence that Slaughter hasn't even tried to find is sitting. "Even if I wanted to help, we've got strict rules about interfering in another cop's investigation. Saving you from getting killed I can do, but-"

"I'm not asking you to do it for me. I'm asking you to do it so the real killer doesn't get away with murder." She closes the file she was reading and turns to him.

"What makes you think I'm going to fall for that blatant manipulation?"

"Because it's true." Kate pauses like she needed to think about helping him, but in actuality she knew she would help him no matter what. He's her partner, so she holds the folder out to him.

"What's this?" He scans the contents of it.

"A traffic cam shot of Vales' car ten blocks from the cemetery heading away from the overpass where Glitch was killed."

"11:57. Glitch was killed after midnight. This shows Vales couldn't have killed him." Rick stops and looks up at her. "You did this for me?" Kate can't help but give him a look that hides her smile. "All this time you had my back?"

"I had Ryan run a traffic cam search while he was _pulling a plate?_" Rick looks almost ashamed to be caught asking for help. "It's not a smoking gun Castle, ok? You can't even see Vales' face in the photo. It's not enough to change Slaughter's mind unless you've got something else. Kate watches as Castle is thinking through things. His face brightens after a few moments and he puts down the folder to reach into his jacket pocket.

"There is one more thing that doesn't make sense. This is a map of the area. This is the cemetery, this is the overpass. But to get to it Glitch would have to climb a six foot fence. Why do that when there's a subway station a block away? Why hide when you can run?"

"Maybe we can find out." Kate suggests and Rick gives her the first real smile she has seen from him since they parted this morning.

"According to the CSU report Glitch was shot somewhere around here." Castle starts to rattle through the case with her but they both start seeing things that are off. It wasn't until a car drives up and interrupts them that they realize that Slaughter is coming in hot for the take. "Oh crap."

"Well! Imagine my surprise when I got to the station with my killer and I hear you're stirring up my crime scene!" Kate has never hated anyone so much until she sees how utterly scared Castle is of this other cop.

"Okay, look. I can explain-"

"Save it. He don't know any better but you do." Like he can scare Kate.

"What I know is you coerced a confession out of an 18 year old kid."

"I didn't coerce jack. He works for a guy that's got a trail of bodies that stretches all the way back to the Rio Grande. If he doesn't go down for this, the body count just grows."

"We've got a traffic video photo of Vales' Escalade ten blocks from here when the murder went down."

"Yeah, so what? Could you see him in the car?"

"Not exactly." Rick has to admit after a moment.

"And if his lawyer gets a hold of it you've handed him reasonable doubt. And then Vales walks."

"Maybe he deserves to walk."

"He deserves to be pulled apart by horses, but the law says I can't do that. But what I can do is lock him up in prison for the rest of his life. Now the question is, are you gonna back off or am I going to have to report you for jumping my case?"

"You do what you gotta do Slaughter. And I'll do the same." Kate has stood up to harder circumstances than Slaughter's threats. And for Rick? Well there isn't much she wouldn't do for him.

"Wow. Wow." Is all Slaughter can manager to mutter as he storms back to his car.

"Thanks."

"We got about an hour to figure out who really killed Glitch before I get called on the carpet by the Chief of Detectives."

"What can he do to you?" The concern on Rick's face shows he never meant for her job to be on the line, but she knows he wants the truth.

"Best case scenario, he suspends me."

"And the worst case scenario?" Kate can't bring herself to say it, so she just gives him the best look she can manage at the moment, before walking away.

"Crap." Rick sighs as they continue looking at the evidence in front of them. It wasn't until they find the last working payphone in the United States that things start to click and they make their way back to the precinct. Eventually they do have to bring Slaughter in on it all, but in the end they are able to arrest the right killer and manage to give Vales a warning to get the hell out of her city.

"Oh that is sexy." She can see the look on Rick's face at Slaughter's comment. "What? You want to hit me for that too?

"No." Castle's answer contradicts the look on his face that she knows too well. Too many years of being his partner and now being his girlfriend, she knows Rick Castle is lying. But she didn't expect Slaughter to punch Castle in the stomach while making comments about not having his back, the lack of possibility of a character like him, and a hearing on Tuesday that she will have to ask Rick about.

"Detective, if you ever want to go on a date that ends in sex after a drunken fistfight, you know where to find me." Kate rolls her eyes as she walks the opposite direction from Slaughter.

"Yeah, in Never Gonna Happen Land." She calls over her shoulder before making her way over to where her boyfriend is still crouched over from being hit.

"Hey." He breathes out. "Thanks very much for your help."

"No problem Castle. It's what partners are supposed to do, along with paperwork. Maybe next time you can help with that instead of running off with other cops." She teases, but she knows her writer is more of a one cop type man now.


End file.
